ClubHack has now announced an online “Capture-the-Flag” hacking contest, and the first three contestants to capture the flag get a free ticket to the conference. (If you’ve already bought a ticket, you can still participate, and transfer your winning ticket to a friend.)

IndicThreads has been running a Java Conference in Pune for the last 6 years, and claims to be the oldest vendor-neutral Java conference. It is a great place to learn & discuss Java. You can check out PuneTech’s previous coverage of IndicThreads conferences to get an idea of our opinion of these conferences.

This Java Knowledge Contest will give two PuneTech readers the chance to attend this conference for free (which otherwise costs Rs. 3500 (2500 for students)). The contest is open to all, and all you need to do to enter is take one of these Java Knowledge tests:

(Disclaimer #1: PuneTech has a policy of not promoting paid events, except under these circumstances:

We publicize calls for speakers of conferences in Pune, especially if selected speakers get a free entry to the conference

We publicize events where the fees are reasonably low, or if the event is exceptional.

We publicize contests related to such events if that will result in PuneTech readers getting a chance at free tickets

We allow addition of paid conferences to the PuneTech calendar, and will sometimes tweet about them, but they are not allowed on the PuneTech front page unless they satisfy one of the criteria above

We are happy to publish event reports after the event, if they match up to our quality expectations.

This contest is being published on PuneTech due to reason #3.

Disclaimer #2: The contest is being run on ReliScore.com. Since the founders of ReliScore are also the people behind PuneTech, we try hard not to misuse PuneTech for publicizing ReliScore (due to the conflict of interest). However, in this particular case, since the contest benefits the community, we felt it was acceptable.)

Selected as on of the top 5 finalists in the Economic Times Power of Ideas Competition conducted by the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad. CIIE along with Dr. Narayan Murthy extended Seed Funding to this venture.

Selected as one of the Category Winner at the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Program.

Selected as one of the Red Herring Global 100 (Innovative ideas and ventures).

Winner of the Wipro-Wharton Global Innovation Challenge in the category of New Consumer-Centric Innovations, felicitated at the Wharton campus.

Prof. Gupte is part of the senior management team at Amplify Mindware, a group of educational institutions that are part of the Bharati Vidyapeeth family.

The PuneTech Group on LinkedIn has 2950 members right now, and will hit the nice round figure of 3000 sometime soon. It is already one of the largest Pune-related groups on LinkedIn (we think it is the 2nd largest).

Joining this group is a good way to let the world know that you’re a technology professional in Pune (or you have some strong connection to Pune). It is also a place where you can look for connections, or people can find you.

Also, the group there has forums, discussions, job postings – different from what you find in the PuneTech website and email subscription. So it would be a good idea to join.

To generally celebrate this milestone, and to encourage more people to join, we are giving away an “I am a Pune Technologist” T-shirt to a couple of randomly selected people out of the people who join the PuneTech LinkedIn group between now, and the time that it hits 3050 members. And to ensure that existing members don’t feel cheated, we’ll also pick a couple of existing members randomly.

So please join. And invite your friends too. The faster we reach 3050, the faster you get your T-shirts.

CREDENZ is an annual National Level Technical event organized by PICT IEEE Student Branch. On 16th , 17th and 18th September. CREDENZ is being organized for the past 7 years and has carved niche for itself as one of the most regarded Technical Events, drawing entries from CS, IT and E&TC colleges all over India.

Events at CREDENZ:

Seminars:

Programming Models by Udayan Kanade, Founder of Oneirix Labs

Ruby On Rails by Gautam Rege, Co-Founder of Josh Software Pvt. Ltd.

Mobile Computing by Vikas Verma, V.P. Emerging Technologies, Cybage

Contests:

Paper Presentation – Presentations by students – One of the most popular events of Credenz.

Business Plan Contest

M.A.D talks – Showcasing innovative and/or wacky ideas

‘C’Lash- C/C++ coding competition

Quiz

RoboLIGA – Robotics event. Football tournament between bots.

Pixelate – Design / Art competition

WebWeaver – Web design contest

CREDENZ also has 3 online events:

Blog It Up – Create and run a technical blog.

Like – Use facebook to promote a social cause

Network Treasure Hunt

This event is open for anybody to attend. Students who wish to participate (in the free online events, or the paid on-campus events) can register here

A few weeks back, we had reported on the Pune Traffic Police’s contest to design a Pune Traffic Portal. The first round of filtering is now done, and PTP has announced 5 designs short-listed for the final round. You can see the designs at:

To vote and/or comment on these designs, go to the facebook page for this contest. 20% of the marks have been reserved for the community voting, and the remaining 80% will be awarded by the judges.

The results will be declared on 3rd January. The best design gets a cash prize of Rs. 50000.

(By the way, if you read this before 5pm on Monday, 27 Dec, please note that Pune Traffic Police have called their “facebook friends” to University Circle at 5pm today to analyze and discuss the traffic problems of that area, and gather suggestions from the people. DCP Manoj Patil will be present. Check out the awesome Pune Traffic Police facebook page for more details.)

Janwani and Pune Traffic Police have announced a contest for designing a traffic information portal for Pune. The last date for registering is 20th November, and the last date for submission is 30th November. There’s a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 for the winner. The contest will be judged based on usability, creativity, use of animated features, graphics and color theme. Contest entrants will get detailed guidelines after registering.

About Pune Traffic Police

In the last few years, Pune Traffic Police have started a number of very interesting tech initiatives. For example, just yesterday, they announced the launch of a facebook page where citizens can report parking violations and Traffic Police will take action against the offenders. I assume it his this page.There is also the “Blackberry” programme, where Pune Traffic officers enter all traffic violations data in an online server, and this has actually helped them find repeat offenders, solve some long standing cases, etc. This system was developed by Pune Startup Omni-Bridge, and we’re hoping to cover them on PuneTech sometime soon.

Stay tuned.

About Janwani

Janwani is an initiative of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), it was formed in 2006 to advocate and promote equitable and sustainable development in the city beneficial to the citizens. This is turn stems from the fact that the city will not be an attractive destination unless it is a truly “livable city.”

Janwani endeavors to take a comprehensive view of city development. They work towards identifying gaps and priority areas in the development process, and providing well researched and implementable solutions. They are working to both create a shared vision amongst Punekars of the type of city they want, and bring this vision to reality by networking, facilitating and driving the development process of the city on the desired path.

Update: Yogesh Pathak and Ravi are the winners. Congratulations, instructions have been sent to you by email.

Every year, the IIT-Bombay Alumni Association of Pune holds their flagship event, Innovations, which showcases 16 of the most interesting innovations from across India. This year, Innovations 2009, will he held on January 10 and 11 from 9am to 6:30pm at the Dewang Mehta auditorium, Persistent Systems.

PuneTech has teamed up with IITBAA to give two of our readers a chance to win free delegate passes, which would otherwise cost you Rs. 1000 each. To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment on this post as to why you would like to attend Innovations, and how you expect to benefit from attending. (If you are a blogger, and would like to send some google juice our way, blog about this, and link to this post. Your trackback/pingback appearing in the comments sections will be considered an entry into this contest.) The two most interesting responses, as determined by the IITBAA executive committee in consultation with PuneTech editors will get one free entry pass each. Contest ends on Monday, 5th January, midnight (Indian time).

What to expect at Innovations 2009

Innovations 2009 will be a two day event

Day 1 will start with keynote speech, followed by 16 fast-paced presentations by the innovators, a visit to the exhibits, and Q&A with all the innovators. In the evening, there will be a networking dinner for innovators with special invitees.

Day 2 will be an i2i (Innovation to IPO) Workshop. i2i is a concentrated learning capsule of 4-5 hours on the vital aspects of starting a new enterprise. The innovators and would be entrepreneurs are exposed to ‘how to’ – create a business plan, explore funding options, create a go to market strategy, deal with legal/regulatory aspects and more. Renowned experts from diverse fields share their experiences & expertise in 45 min sessions (3-4 of such sessions are planned) and help innovators create their own roadmap to success.

Why we think you should attend

Amit Paranjape, primary advisor to PuneTech, has attended the last two Innovations events, is a fan of this event and the reason why we talked the IITBAA into running this contest for our readers. Both of us (i.e. Amit and Navin) are attending Innovations (with our own money). We this this will be a great place to meet a whole lot of very interesting people from the startup ecosystem in India (although, technically, Innovations is not limited just to startups – even innovations in big companies are eligible.)

The innovations website gives these reasons for why you should attend.

Approximately 350 invitees consisting of VC’s, bankers, corporate executives, academicians, scientists, media, and other professionals are expected to attend this event. The organizers believe that there are a number of reasons why an invitee will be compelled to attend such an event. They are:

Meet multiple innovators to learn about what it took to put the innovation in practice. The attendees will acquire an interdisciplinary perspective on the process of innovation and on how to pitch an innovation.

Listen to an industry leader’s perspective on the process of innovation.

Have one-on-one sessions at the exhibits and set up subsequent dialogs. The exhibition booths will highlight the key aspects of each innovation. The organizers expect that individuals closest to the innovations presented are available to interact with the attendees.

So try to come up with different reasons as to why you want to attend – maybe something specific to what you want to get out of this event. If you’ve attended this event in the past and have interesting stories to share, you would have an unfair advantage. So be it – life is unfair.

And let your friends know. PuneTech is a free, non-commercial, for the community and by the community site which depends only upon word-of-mouth advertising.